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The other day, Cjrystia Freeland of Reuters wrote, “With hindsight, we may find that the 2016 U.S. presidential race began last week, when Hillary Rodham Clinton made a politically electrifying point. ‘Why extremists always focus on women remains a mystery to me,’ she said at the Women in the World conference in New York. ‘But they all seem to. It doesn’t matter what country they’re in or what religion they claim. They want to control women.‘” Actually, the Secretary of State made another important point. “It is hard to believe that even here at home, we have to stand up for women’s rights and reject efforts to marginalize any one of us, because America needs to set an example for the entire world,” she said.

Albert Hunt of Bloomberg News predicted earlier,” On Nov. 7, the day after the presidential election, she will be the front-runner for the 2016 Democratic nomination, regardless of who wins the presidency this time or whether she plans to run."

Bill Keller, the former executive editor of the New York Times, addressed the idea of Hillary Clinton replacing Joe Biden as President Obama’s running-mate in this fall’s campaign. “It’s time to take it seriously,” he wrote and gave three specific reasons for the Hillary as candidate for the vice presidency: “One: it does more to guarantee Obama’s re-election than anything else the Democrats can do. Two: it improves the chances that, come next January, he will not be a lame duck with a gridlocked Congress but a rejuvenated president with a mandate and a Congress that may be a little less forbidding. Three: it makes Hillary the party’s heir apparent in 2016.

Like others with less prominent media platforms Keller envisioned Biden to replace Clinton as secretary of state.

But Maureen Dowd is convinced that such a switch--however compelling--is “not on the radar screen at the White House” because Hillary Clinton would not “be able to navigate past two powerful men who would find her elevation problematic: Obama and Biden.”

When the first “Hillary for vice president” suggestions surfaced in the blogosphere, I dismissed them as pipe dreams. But the prospect of having any of the remaining GOP candidates duping enough independent voters and moderate Republicans (if there are any left) to score a victory over President Obama in November has changed my view.

Sarah Palin’s public support for Limbaugh’s right of free speech—and by extension for male chauvinism and gutter language directed at women—did not stop the exodus of advertisers from the Russ Limbaugh radio show. As Media Matters reports based on yesterday’s (March 8th) 3-hour Limbaugh program:

86 ads aired during New York based WABC's broadcast…; 77 of those ads were public service announcements donated free of charge by the Ad Council; and of the nine paid spots that ran, seven were from companies that have said they have taken steps to ensure their ads no longer air during the program.

ThinkProgress reports that on Thursday, “listeners in the nation’s largest media market [New York] were treated to over five minutes of radio silence where Limbaugh’s advertisers once stood.”

The talk show host’s claim that the withdrawal of about 50 advertisers has not impacted his show and the 600 stations around the country that air the program is not credible. While it is possible that he will win new deep pocket advertisers that share his views and his style, it may not be as easy as he pretends.

Palin is right, when she reminds us that the First Amendment guarantees Mr. Limbaugh the right of free expression. Indeed, he can say what he wants. If he defames a private person, and I think this was the case in his outbursts against law student Sandra Fluke, he could be sued for libel (as an aside, while private persons have only prove that they have been defamed to win libel cases, this is very different with respect to public officials/public figures: Since the New York Times vs. Sullivan ruling, the “actual malice” clause makes it next to impossible for public figures to win libel cases even if they have been defamed).

Fox News star Bill O’Reilly has seconded Limbaugh’s attacks on Sandra Fluke accusing her to ask the government to pay for her social life. Why hasn’t there been an anti-O’Reilly protest? The diffence is simply that O’Reilly does not have the influence that Limbaugh has for many years within the Republican Party. His coronation by the Republican Party came in 1994, when the GOP finally won a majority in the US House of Representatives and Newt Gingrich became Speaker. Limbaugh was celebrated by a united Republican front as “Majority Maker.”

Nearly 18 years later he remains the single most influential voice of conservatives, the Republican Party and its powerful Tea Party wing. That’s why GOP leaders and especially the contenders for party’s presidential nominations do not criticize Limbaugh--regardless of what he says.

Obviously, they all hope that he will be their “majority maker.”

For Sarah Palin to call anti-Limbaugh protests the “definition of hypocrisy” is disingenuous in that she insists on Mr. Limbaugh’s free speech right without granting the same liberty to his critics.

His hateful tirade against a female law school student and her demand for insurance-covered contraceptives even at church-related institutions cost shock jock Rush Limbaugh according to today’s New York Timesseven advertisers so far. But as successful as the spontaneous on-line protests against Limbaugh’s despicable attack on Sandra Fluke was--by extension an attack on all women practicing birth control and requiring insurance coverage--, the pressure must not stop but expand to a boycott of all radio stations that carry Limbaugh’s talk show and TV- and radio-networks they are affiliated with.

It is telling that the usually unapologetic Limbaugh issued an apology after one advertiser after another jumped ship over the weekend. To stem this tide and financial harm, he issued a lame apology. “My choice of words was not the best, and in the attempt to be humorous, I created a national stir,” he said in his statement. “I sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke for the insulting word choices.”

That was actually a non-apology. What Limbaugh said in his endless rants in his broadcasts on three consecutive days was not simply a poor choice of words-- he called Ms. Fluke “slut” and “prostitute”--but rather another shameful manifestation of his disrespect for many groups, including women and minorities.

Since Limbaugh strives on controversy and attention-getting hate-speak to promote his show and excite his huge audience, one might conclude that it would be best to ignore the episodes of particularly vile insults. But that would ignore the reality that Rush Limbaugh is for many years the most influential voice in the Republican Party.

In the past, even the slightest criticism of Limbaugh’s most distasteful outbursts resulted inevitably in “forgive me, Rush” apologies. That explains the reactions of leading Republicans this time around. Mitt Romney said, “It’s not the language I would have used.” In other words, Romney has no problem with the substance of Limbaugh’s attacks, rather with his linguistic choices. This leaves me to wonder whether Romney would have used more civil terms (perhaps sex worker?) to substitute Limbaugh’s choices. Rick Santorum called the controversial Limbaugh episode “absurd” but nevertheless “justified” since Limbaugh is an entertainer. Ah, an entertainer with so much influence in real Republican politics!